The most important page of any book is the first. Those first few paragraphs and that first sentence can make or break the book. How many times have you picked up a novel, read the first page, and put it back down? I had the good fortune to take a seminar with best-selling author Jody…
Most writers fall into one of two camps: plotters or pantsers. Plotters write detailed outlines before they put pen to paper, figuring out the characters, the story, and the world in advance. Pantsers, also known as discovery writers, might have a basic idea of what they’re going to write, but they leave the details to…
Sometimes inspiration doesn’t come to me spontaneously and I need external prompts. The divinatory system of the tarot offers a complex map of human psychology, archetypes, and challenges that I’ve found a great starting point for understanding and developing characters and stories. In trying to harness all that intuitive potential planning my books, I came up with this approach to using the cards as a storyteller.